28 



The National Geographic Magazine 



was unquestioned, but when certain ter- 

 ritory became of value, Great Britain 

 raised the question of uncertainty and 

 claimed a strip to which she held no title 

 and had never claimed title. In the same 

 way with Chile and Argentine. For 

 thirty years the Cordillera de los Andes 

 was the boundary acknowledged by 

 both governments. Then in 1841 Chile 

 sent a colonizing expedition to the Pen- 

 insula of Brunswick, in the Straits of 

 Magellan, and claimed the whole Ma- 

 gellan territory. The Argentine Re- 

 public protested, but was not sufficiently 

 energetic to settle the question at once. 

 Chile gained possession of a large part 

 of what she then claimed, and the 

 remainder of the claim is still in dis- 

 pute. 



Encouraged by this success, Chile 

 proceeded to claim territory at various 

 points along her entire length which 

 she had never claimed before, and justi- 

 fied her conduct by her interpretation 

 of the complex geographic conditions 

 of the Andes. These claims continually 

 increased until at last war between the 

 republics became imminent. It was 

 averted, however, and the Argentine 

 Republic, at least, thought that every- 

 thing was settled satisfactorily by the 

 treaty of 1 88 1. The ambiguous word- 

 ing of that treat}', however, enabled 



Chile to claim even more than she had 

 ever done before. 



The parts of the disputed boundary 

 are three : 



1. That relating to the region be- 

 tween parallels 23 and 26° 52' 45" lati- 

 tude south. The territory in dispute 

 here was a tract between two parallel 

 ranges, Argentine claiming the west- 

 ern and Chile the eastern range as the 

 boundary. The dispute regarding this 

 section became so bitter in 1899 that the 

 United States Minister to Argentine, 

 Mr. William H. Buchannan, was asked 

 to act as arbitrator. He settled the 

 difference by awarding to the Argentine 

 Republic eleven-twelfths of the disputed 

 territory in this region. 



2. That relating to the boundary 

 from parallel 26 52' 45" to the prox- 

 imity of parallel 52 latitude south. 

 Sections of this boundary, where the 

 water divide and the crests of the moun- 

 tains coincide, have been settled by the 

 two governments, but the larger dis- 

 tance is still undefined. 



3. That relating to the boundary 

 region close to latitude 52 south. This 

 is the region of the Magellan Strait, 

 and the geographic conditions are most 

 complex. Chile has, however, as pre- 

 viously described, gained a large sec- 

 tion of what she original!}' claimed. 



RECENT DECISIONS OF U. S. BOARD ON 



GEOGRAPHIC NAMES 



THE following decisions have been 

 recently made by the U. S. 

 Board on Geographic Names : 

 Afio Nuevo ; bay, creeks, island, and 

 point, San Mateo County, Califor- 

 nia (not New Year ) . 

 Aultmans ; run, tributary to Cone- 

 maugh River, Indiana County, 

 Pennsylvania (not Alteman nor 

 Altman's). 



Barren ; run, tributary to Jacobs Creek, 

 Westmoreland County, Pennsylva- 

 nia (not Barnes). 



Bentley ; post-office and railroad station, 

 Baltimore County, Maryland (not 

 Bentley Springs). 



post-office, Santa Cruz 

 County, California (not Bonny 



Bonnie Doon 

 County 

 Doon). 



